Business software vendor Salesforce.com has launched the latest edition of Chatter, its enterprise social networking application. Native Chatter apps are now available for Android and iOS, and users are gaining the ability to view, edit and create Salesforce records from within their Chatter social feeds.

The mobile platform innovations will be of interest to companies such as Bayer Canada and Telus, who are among Salesforce’s Canadian customers and Chatter users. They’re two of the vendor’s 6,000 Canadian customers, and Renny Monaghan, vice-president of Canadian marketing for Salesforce, said the platform scales down to small businesses as well.

While Salesforce has a variety of company created and third-part applications and web tools to access backend data and perform specific tasks, Monaghan said what makes Chatter unique is that as Salesforce’s social network, it’s the one collaboration tool that all employees across a company can access, not just those in sales, service or marketing.

By bringing in the viewing and editing of Salesforce objects and integrating it into your news feed (you can select which records you want to “follow”), Monaghan said a user can get everything in once place.

“It’s really about making it a more seamless experience,” said Monaghan, in an interview with ITBusiness.ca. “Your level of access to the backend is still tied to your role and title; security rules still apply.”

Users will also now also be able to create polls, assign tasks and create custom objects. The Chatter app is available now in the Android and Apple iOS app stories, and the ability to edit and create records should be available in the second half of the year.

“The biggest demand we have right now for Chatter is for (Android and iOS)” said Monaghan. “The other platforms will come as popularity demands it.”

He notes that other Salesforce mobile solutions are available cross-platform in HTML5.

Jeff Jedras is a technology journalist with IT World Canada and a member of the IT Business team. He began his career in technology journalism in the late 1990s, covering the Ottawa technology sector for Silicon Valley North and the Ottawa Business Journal. He later covered the technology scene in Vancouver before joining IT World Canada in Toronto in 2005, covering enterprise IT for ComputerWorld Canada and the channel for Computer Dealer News. His writing has also appeared in the Vancouver Sun & the Ottawa Citizen.